Take the proposed collective-bargaining agreement you've been offered and run with the 1995-96 season.

Remember that panicked June meeting all of you had in Chicago? The one in which Patrick got up, waved his arms and made an impassioned plea for decertification of the union? You emerged from that meeting with a "mandate" from the league's nearly 400 players.

The owners have given you virtually everything you asked for in that mandate. All of it.

Take the deal.

- BOB YOUNG

The Arizona Republic

NFL exhibitions a sham by any name

The NFL bristles at the term "exhibition" game. The league prefers to call them preseason games, trying to add a hint of dignity to games that have none.

These aren't preseason games. They are exhibitions, regardless of what the NFL wants to call them. They are meaningless. Expensive, but meaningless. So here's a round of applause for the New York Jets and Washington Redskins, the only two NFL teams that do not include the exhibition games in their season-ticket packages.

Maybe when the next television contract comes up in 1998, the league and networks will decrease the preseason to two games and increase the regular season to 18 games. Maybe they'll start giving the fans their money's worth.